Method of beneficiating manganese ores



2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR ATTORNE- 6.

Nov. 19, 1929. l... B. MILLER ET AL METHOD OF BENEFICIATING MANGANESE GRES Filed April 22, 1927 Leonard B Mii/er and BYM/ ri/ M711 61. Eine/uff Nov. 19, 1929.

L. B. MILLER l' AL METHOD OF BENEFICIATING MANGANESE ORES Filed April 22, 1927 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented Nov. 19, 1929 UNITED STATES PATENT oFElcE LEONARD B. MILLER, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, AND WILLIAM G. IB'IITIIEEABIL,` OF BATES- VILLE, ARKANSAS, ASSIGNORS TO SAID MILLER r j METHOD .OF BENEFICIATING MANGANESE" OBES Application filed April 22,

of manganese and for processing such clays to recover the manganese oxides either in the 6 form generally known as manganese ores or inthe form known as ferruginous manganese ores, the difference between the two types of ores being merely the proportions of manganese oxide to iron oxide in the finished or 10 processed product.

In clays of thisinature containing oxide of manganese there is normally a small proportion of the oxides which are. coarse and a major proportion of the oxides which are in small particles and which are known as ines. The coarse material or lumps, as it is called, occurs in these residual clays in such small percentages that only in rare cases can it be made avallable for use at commercially economic cost and heretofore no\ way has been known to make commercially available the largely preponderating quantity of fines for the reason that no practical method for their beneiciation and separation'from the clays has been known.

The present process 4will beneiciate and make the oxides economically available for commercial and'metallurgical use -and this process broadly consists in taking the clays and first passing them into a soaking pit and thereafter passing them through a log washer arranged in a particular fashion at the end of which part of the process the material is picked or separated and the lumps made immediately available. The remainder' of the material containing all of the vlines is then passed through a series of washing and concentrating units and washed continuously with an excess of water at all lstages until the impurities have been substantially eliminated and the available fines are then ref moved and preferably processed by meansof heat so as to remove not only the free or meteoric Water, but also the water of crystallization, and thus the n'ishedmaterialV is in the form of manganese ore or ferrugi'nous manganese ore. To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, said invention 50 then, consists of the means hereinafter fully 1927. Serial N0. 185,779.

described and particularly pointed out in the claims.

The annexed drawings and the following description set forth in detail certain means and one mode of carrying out the invention;

such disclosed means and mode illustrating, however, but one of various ways in which the principle of the invention may be used.

In said annexed drawings: y

` Figs. 1 and 1A are dia aromatic elevation al views of apparatus or carrying out the present process; and Figs. 2 and 2A are diagrammatic plan views of suchapparatus.

In carrying out the present process of beneic'iating manganese oxides, the oxide bearing clay as it is mined is first transported to and dumped into a soaking or saturation tank or pit 1 to which water is continuously added,the water being sufficient in quantity to saturate and substantially emulsify the clay so far as is vpracticable in this initial step and the oxide bearing clay is normally added to and removed from the pit asa continuous operation.

It is. of course, understood that this iirst preliminary soaking step could be accomplished by any satisfactory mechanism such as a mixing device with agitating mechamsm and if a device of this ty e is employed, the

material would betreate either in batches or continuously.

From this soaking pit the partially saturated mineralized residual clay is removed and passed into a log washing unit 2 1n which it is further treated by adding continuously an excess of water from piper?, and in this log washer the material is continuously stirred or agitated by the use of paddles. This agitation and disintegration of the material is aided by the introduction of p ieces of rock or iron or `steel balls of suitable size.

yIn adding water to the material in the lo washer, the water should be suillcient in quantity to further liquefy the orlglnal muddy solution and accelerate the solution of tbe clay and its gradual separation from.

the metallic oxides which are present. `The log washer preferably used in the present charge aperture 5 which is located at thel high end and thus the ores are preserved instead of passing off with the excess water as would be the case in a standard form of log Washer inwhich the. discharge end is higher than the intake end. From the log washer 2 the material is discharged into a screeningA or sizing apparatus 6 preferably into the end of a revolving screen cylinder into which are introduced additional quantities of clear water from pipe 8 sufficient to wash the fine material off and separate it from the coarse material, the lines thus passing through the holes in the screen and bein carried off by a Hume the log washer preferably by conveyor belt,

15 and the lump rock .may also be returned in such quantities as may be found desirable to aid in the disintegratlon being carried on in the log washing unit. The returned clay balls are thus further agitated and broken up in the log washer and as finely broken up pass through the entire process in due course.

The further processing of the material deals only with the fines which pass directly into the settling chamber 10 from the sizing screen and this settling tank or chamber 10 formedA with a dischargefchute 117 at one end. Water is continuously added to the chamberpreferably near the bottom thereof' through a pipe 18 so as'to agitate and keep the material stirred up l'and partially in sus;-

pension and the water as it overflows carries with it mud and lighter materials to a mud,

pond or waste material pond through a chute l 19 while the heavier materials which contain the lines of desirable ores settle tOefhe bottom of the tank and are removed therefrom by a conveyor 20 which carries these materials to the rear end of the tank against the flow of water from pipe 18 as it is forced into the tank and through a chute or flume and into a second log washer 22 which is located below and beyond the settling tank as shown in the drawings. In this settling chamber, a great. deal of impurities such as the lighter clays 1 and soil is removed, and the ore and the metallic oxides'which are passed into thisrlog washer and are largely separated from the original mother cla but .are still so contam inated or mixed. w1th, clay as tornecessitate further processing.

In. this second log was pr 22, which is of conventional design, the lins\with the impurities still' present, are wasled and Iagior chute 9 to a settling tank 10 or like unitv`r tated and clear Water is continuously added to this log Washer toremove impurities. The

overfiowfrom this washer leads to another The ore stream fromthe washer passes out from the high end thereof through a chute l 30 into a storagebox or device 31 which has a discharge chute 32 connected to an elevating mechanism 33'. The material then passes out through the elevator and intoa screening device 34 and the fine part of the material passes out through the meshes of the screen and througha suitable chute 35 into-a gang bin or settling tank 36 while the coarser particles of the material which are too large to pass through .the meshes of the screen, pass out from the end of the-screen cylinder into a hopper 50 which feeds them through a.

crusher 37. From the crushing rolls, the material passes back into the lower part of the elevator by meansof a chute 51 so that the crushed material can thus pass up through and into the screening cylinder again until all of the material is brought to a uniform or satisfactorylsize. Water is added to the material in the screening cylinderfrom pipe 38- so as to aid in'washing the fines through the cylinder and also to aid in dissolving or washing olf' such clays as may be present at this stage of the process. 4The material, while in the gang bin or settling chamber 36 is further treated by adding clear Water at the botl' tom of the chamber through pipes 52 so as to agitate and keep the material moving, and the excess water from the ang bin flows off at-the top of the bin throng the mud or waste pond. Y The metallic oxides which are now practically free from clay are removed from the gang bin by a suitable conveyor 40 and are passed through a chute or delivery mechanism 41 to a series of. concentrating tables 42 i o n which they are separated so far as practicable from particles of foreign .material such as lime or silicawhich up to this stage of the process have not been separated from suitable chute 39 to lll) the metallic oxides.- This table separation is aided by the use of additional vclear water from pipes 43 asin every stage of the process: From the concentrating tables the substantially purified metallic oxides are passed into a storage bin 44by means of a suitable sump 45 and. pump 46, and from thestorage bin the processed material which is now in the form of'substantially pure oxides of manganese and iron isremovedy The further steps as shown by the apparatus disclosed are employed mostly for preparing the metallic oxides for shipment to distant'points.- If the material could be used at some nearby place, the further processing might be of a different nature, but for disties as is possible. Y

tant shipments, the material from the last storage bin 44 is preferably passed 'through' a drying and sintering cylinder 47 where both the free or meteoric water and the water of crystallization are substantially removed. The dried or burned material from the sintering cylinder is then passed into the final A storage bin v48 from which it is shipped in the form of manganese or ferruginous manganese ores.

`In, carrying out the present process for the heneficiation of the raw material, the firstH real sltep in the process is to soak orlsaturate the materialand then'to agitate it or pass it through a log Washer in the presence of an excess o f clear running Water until it is in condition to be sized and picked for the removal of vthe coarser lumps of ore which form a fairly definite percentage of the total oxides which may be removed.

The second general step in the process is then tobeneficiate the fines until substantially all of the impurities are removed and this is accomplished by passing the fine material through a series of settling and washing chambers in each of which an excess of clear water is added so as to dissolve and wash off in each stage as much of the impuri- It has been found practical to accomplish this result by first passing the fines into a settling chamber in which they are continuously washed and agitated -and then into a second log washer with its settling tank and conveyor mechanism by which material is returned to lthe washer and then-passing the material by means of the elevating mechanism through the sizing screen and into the gang bin and in this step the coarser parts of the material are crushed'and returned to the screen so that the material as it reaches the gang bin is properly sized.

At this stage the material is reduced to substantially metallic ore together with such impurities that water will not remove such as lime, silica, etc., and the removal of this is accomplished in the next step by means of the 'concentrating tables and the material as passed into lthe storage bin from the concentrating tables is in the form ofsubstantially pure metallic oxides, which, of course, are mixed with water and are thus in a liquid' state and this liquid is preferably of 'a consistency such that it may be handled by a pump and thus moved up into a storage bin.

-The metallic oxides of this nature may be tion of the two found to be eitherlsuch as are. known as manganese ores or theymay besuch as are known as ferruginous manganese ores and this will depend entirely upon the nature and proportypes of the original clay which was mined.

To reduce the Weight and make them available for shipment to steel furnaces and the like, where material of this type is used, the liquid materiall is passed through a drying or sintering cylinder' so 'as to eliminate the water contained and it has'been found adl l removed at the picking belt are brought to the' final storage hin or to a similar bin by separate mechanism and it has been found that the lump ores, as they are known, are nor,- mally higher in the manganese vcontained as compared to the ironcontained than are the fines and the lump ore vis'thus ordinarily found to be of a character such thatit is properly sold as manganese ore while' ini-most instances the fines are of the character which is commonly known as ferruginous manganese ore.

It isnecessary through the entire process to use an excess of clear water in every step and without continuous addition of excess quantities of clear water it has been found practically impossible to concentrate thede- `sirable oxides out of the original clay.

In residual clays ofthe nature 'used in the present process such as are found in quantities 1n Arkansas, the percentage of manganese ores present in the clay varies from ten to twenty per cent of the original mined product and inthe ore content from the original clay, the lump ore is usually not over from 2 to 4 per cent of the total ore to be recovered, v

while 'the fines run from 96 to 98 per cent of the total amount of ore in the clay. The present process and the apparatus for carrying out such process as shown in the drawings,V

are relatively simple inasmuch as the material passes largely by gravity fromv the origlnal soaking pit to t e second settling tank `and after one elevator mechanism passes again through the concentrating tables-to the second elevating mechanism in the form of a pump. `The fresh water is added in each of' the washing and settling stages, and ordinarily is added always at thebottom of the chamber so as to have an agitating.andljolling effect upon thematerial being treated.

Other modes of a plying the principle ,of

our invention may he employed instead of the one explained, chan e 1.` The method of benefciation 0f manga- 130vv eing made as regards the means and t e ste s herein d1snese oxide ores consisting ofjirst soaking and Washing the ore and sortin the lump from the fines, then removing t e clay and dirt by washing and agitating the fines through a series of steps all 1n the presenceof an excess of clear water, crushing the obtained ore to a uniform maximum size, and mechanically freeing the ore from forei materials.

2. The method of bene ciation of manganese oxide ores consisting of rst soalnng and washing the ore and sorting the lump yfrom the ines, then removing the clay and dirt from the fines, by repeated agitation, and soakin and washing in the presence of an excess o clear water, reducing the ore to al uniform maximum size and washing the ore as it is being sized, mechanically concentrating and freeing the obtained ore from other impurities.'

3. The meth d of beneiciation of manganese oxide ores-consisting of first soaking and washing the ore and sorting the lump from :the lines, passing the fines into a settling chamber and washing them therein by add-A ing an excess of clear water, further removinv of impurities by washing the product in a og washer and simultaneously adding an excess of clear water, again passing the matev rial into a settling chamber` and agitating with an excess of clear water to remove the remainder of the clay and dirt, sizing the material in the presence of clear running Water, again settling. and cleansing the sized material in a tank to which an excess of clear water is added,' and passing the cleaned materials to concentrating Itables for the removal v.of other materials. Signed by us this 7th day of April, 1927,

' LEONARD B. MILLER.'

WILLIAMG. RINEHART.. 

